Evangelist Franklin Graham banned by the Army earlier this year, continues to host other events on Bases

On September 25th, Franklin brought his evangelical 7.5 hour long event to Fort Bragg. His stated goal was to convert as many soldiers and their spouses. Fort Bragg was far from the first location of the so-called “Rock the Fort” events. They’ve bragged about converting over 500 soldiers on stage at the same time at one event, and 123 at another last year. There is a lot more to this story, and we’ve written extensively about this here and Atheist Oasis has an excellent lengthy treatment here.

Here is an interesting point. Franklin Graham has already been banned from some government functions, by the Army itself. Senior Army officials pointed to controversial and offensive statements Graham made about Muslims and their religion: “Islam is a wicked and evil religion”. Statements such as these enrage the Arabic world, who are super sensitive towards any appearance of a ‘new crusade’. It is unthinkable that our government would want to associate with a man who says such things, and we are glad that logic and reason paved the way in the following case:

From Wikipedia: “Proselytizing is the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion.” And it is specifically banned, according to the Chaplains that I’ve spoken to. Maybe soon Franklin Graham’s attempts to proselytize on military bases will be stopped, too.

I’m a bit disturbed about ‘banning proselytizing’. Shouldn’t it just be no opinion gets either support or discouragement from the superior officers?

Disclaimer

The authors of this blog are speaking on their own behalf. Any views expressed on this site belong to the authors and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any branch of the military.